Happiness Tip: 9 Ways to Ease Overwhelm

A lot of my new book is about easing the overwhelm that comes from the busy world we live in. Here are 9 of my favorite ways:

Make your bed. There is something true about the adage that the state of your bed is the state of your head.

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Set your phone to automatically go into silent mode an hour before your bedtime. Enjoy the peace and quiet.

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Develop a way to “give good no.” As in: “Thank you so much for asking, but that isn’t going to work out for me right now.”

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Turn off your TV unless you intend to watch something specific. Never watch commercials — record your show and skip through them.

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Eat at least one meal a day without doing anything else at the same time. No driving, reading, or responding to email.

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Make decisions about routine things once. Buy the same brands at the grocery store every time; get the same outfit in different colors so you don’t have to decide what to wear every morning; prepare the same basic meals most week days.

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Clean out one drawer or shelf a day. Eventually, everything in your home will have a place, and this will make it easy to find what you need when you need it.

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Establish “predictable time off” with your colleagues and family. When will you commit to not working? Start with dinnertime, work up to weekends.

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Stop multi-tasking. It makes you error prone, and even though you think you’re getting more done, it’s actually quite inefficient.

Click on the image to download a beautiful printable version of my 9 Ways to Ease Overwhelm list.